You may have seen the Portraits de Villes books before. Maybe when you popped into the gift shop at the Ace Hotel in New York, or during your most recent pilgrimage to Colette in Paris. Each of the twelve books is dedicated to a city (Athens, Tokyo, Reykjavík and Dubai, for example), and filled with poetic imagery from a local photographer. Clic Gallery, the SoHo gallery/bookstore responsible for introducing these whimsical wonders to the US, presents a new exhibition inspired by collection.
The Portraits de Villes (City Portraits) series is the creation of indie Parisian publisher/design house Be-Poles. Inspired by the classic Moleskine, the concept is a riff on the field journal, turning the artist’s notebook into an object of art in and of itself. After the success of the first edition in 2009, Be-Poles has released a new foursome of cities each year since. They can be treasured individually, or enjoyed as a colorful collection.
The show at Clic brings the work of the twelve photographers off the whisper-thin pages of the books and onto the gallery walls, to be enjoyed in full scale. Each city has a distinct feel. Los Angeles, shot by Vincent Mercier, is cool and anonymous. New York, as seen through fashion photographer Steve Hiett’s lens, is romantic despite its rawness. And Philippe Chancel’s Dubai feels like CGI — it’s only his portraits of construction workers that remind the viewer otherwise.
Portraits de Villes is on view at Clic Gallery (255 Centre Street, New York) June 29 – July 31.
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